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Thu, 2014-08-07 01:14 — michael.havard

Oscar found what looked to be an old farm road. The gate in front of it had long since disintegrated, leaving behind only two poles to mark it's location. It hadn't been used in a long time either, because the grass stood almost knee high. The only reason he knew there was a road there was just that slight dual indentation left behind from years of a truck wearing a path back and forth.
He pulled in, flattening the grass for a hundred feet until it got shorter and shorter under the dense trees. He thought the trees around this old road would provide good cover while he did his business. He certainly didn't want to risk driving around to look for a better spot.
Then after about a quarter of a mile he spotted a nice little clearing in the forest. He backed the car in as close to the middle as he could, and popped the trunk. The car noticeably lifted as he pulled himself out, grabbing both sides of the door frame as if his arms were the rubber bands of a sling shot and his sizable belly the stone to be shot out.
He lumbered around to the back of the car. Heaved the trunk lid upwards. Pushed the body out of the way and grabbed the shovel. He chuckled a little to himself thinking about how easy it had been to pump two rounds into this "tough" guy.
I mean the rumors had gone around for years about big shot Danny and how indestructible he was. Shot in the neck (for which there was a scar right across the carotid.) A shank to the eye, all kinds of broken bones, what appeared to be a pretty nasty burn on his left side, survived more than a few gun shots. Then at the end of the day after a bunch of smack talk and laughter he challenged Oscar, "If you think you can take me..."
Oscar lived his whole life being underestimated. Danny picked the wrong person to underestimate, because while Oscar was fat and lumbering, he was fast with a gun. POP! POP! Went the gun and two bloody spots appeared on Danny's chest before he could say another word. Now he lay there in the trunk of a stolen car, waiting to be buried in the middle of nowhere. Oscar thought it served him right for all the hubris.
He walked a few feet and found a nice soft patch of ground. He didn't want to deal with the tangle of roots from the trees or spend all night digging in hard soil. Luckily there was a patch that looked like it didn't have much growth. Just a sprig of grass here or there, but mostly dirt.
He pushed the shovel into and found it gave pretty easily. Slowly he marked the rectangle out with the shovel. Then once he had the right dimensions he'd did a little deeper. He didn't need to go too deep. Just enough to keep the body from the scavengers for a bit, keep it from being detected for a couple of years maybe. He wasn't too worried about people finding this guy. No one was going to morn him.
Being a big guy it didn't take long for him to break a good sweat, even in a cool afternoon like this one. He jammed the shovel in the ground and went back to the trunk for a minute, remembering a case of bottled water there. He pulled one free from the plastic shrinkwrap and guzzled it down. It was then that he realized he hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day because of this little nuisance.
"Well, the sooner I dig this hole, the sooner I can dig into a plate of food right?" He said, chuckling to the body in the trunk.
"Don't get up," he said. "I got this," as he fumbled for the clasp on his shoulder holster, removing it and dropping the whole heavy mess into the trunk with dead Danny. He stripped off his shirt as well, just leaving a undershirt working hard to cover more gut than there should be fabric to cover. "Don't bleed on that," Oscar quipped as he dropped the shirt across the the back of the trunk.
He strode quickly this time back to the shovel, determined to get out quick and get some food. He plowed the shovel back into the dirt and hit something hard. 'Damnit!' He cursed in his head. 'Must be a root or some old tree.' He poked around a bit with the shovel, 'hard', 'hard', 'root', 'root'.
Frustrated, he laid the shovel down and got down on his hands and knees to assess the spot. Starting in the middle where it was easier to see, he pushed the dirt to the left and then to the right with his massive paws. It moved pretty easily. He pushed some more, trying to get to the obstruction he'd hit more quickly.
Then he saw something, just a glint, a little flash of... 'Gold?' He scooped more dirt out of the way and saw it flash again and tracked it. There in the dirt was a necklace. A thin chain and some sort of medal or trinket hanging from it. He grabbed the little medal and tugged but it was stuck. He gripped around the medal and the chain and gave a quick tug and it came free.
Oscar sat up there in the clearing, opened his palm and poked at the necklace with a single gigantic and dirty finger. He brushed the dirt way to he could make out the details of a small gold necklace with some sort of religious icon, although it was hard to tell which one. It didn't much matter to him. Jewelry was money, and he didn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Thinking maybe there was more he pushed more dirt away from the same spot. Only this time he was greeted with a surprise; There was already a body in the spot he was digging. 'Just my luck!' He thought to himself, before realizing that if someone had left the necklace, maybe they might have left rings, a wallet, even gold teeth. So he stuffed the necklace in his pocket and continued to push dirt out of the way using his hands like plows.
Finally he had uncovered quite a bit of torso and head. There wasn't much to see, for some reason the unlucky corpse had been dumped face down in the hole. There looked to be a good sized wound in the back of the head, meaning there probably wasn't much of a face left. 'Poor bastard,' He thought. 'He probably had to dig the hole himself, and then they shot him right here and just covered him up and ran away.' He wished he would have done the same with Danny. Now he was going to have to find a new spot, but not before recouping for his time.
He went back to pushing the dirt out of the way. Rocking back and forth on his knees trying to uncover the body as quickly as he could. His own necklace followed gravity and slipped out of the neck of his shirt and swayed like a pendulum underneath him. He grabbed it and flicked it over his shoulder, like he did when his tie was in the way of cutting up a body.
With that flick there was also a click, like the slide of a gun, like the clap of thunder from the electricity of his neurons all firing at once. Except that he didn't have neurons anymore. Ghosts didn't have neurons he realized, as the scene played out again. He heard the click, and was falling toward the freshly dug hole before even hearing the POP of the round exiting the barrel.
It was his necklace he'd found, and his body face down in that hole. In that instant he remembered everything. Digging the hole a few feet down, being almost finished digging, when he heard the click of his own gun, the one he'd left in the trunk with the body... with Danny. He'd committed the cardinal sin of killing, 'two in the body... ONE IN THE HEAD' he thought to himself in the moment just before his death. 'ONE IN THE HEAD!' And then it was done and he lay in the hole, his eternal resting place. He felt the cool earth on his body and wondered, 'What happens next?'
Darkness crept in... and then...
Oscar found what looked to be an old farm road. The gate in front of it had long since disintegrated...